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Share of Income Gains by Quintile - Great Depression til Now

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Re: Share of Income Gains by Quintile - Great Depression til Now

#291

Post by shithead »

solutionyogi wrote: post #162
shithead wrote: post #103

""" Another thing to consider in terms of whether the rich “deserve” their money, or whether those rewards belong to the society that bestows them is the consolidation of labor. Consider Oprah Winfrey. She s probably only marginally better than the next best candidate for talk show queen. Yet she has amassed 100′s of millions while the next bes candidate for her job has no such job at alll. So we have two people, one…

Wow. Obviously, if you are not Oprah, you would want to think that she is only 5% better than the next best candidate. I am sure others disagree. What if you apply this to other fields e.g. Steve Jobs is only 5% better than next CEO? Does it make sense? I think this is a nonsense approach to decide how to tax someone.

Wow. An unfamiliar thought. Masterfully repealed, though. Not very logically, but hey, so what. All is well.

Re: Share of Income Gains by Quintile - Great Depression til Now

#292

Post by Lagged2Death »

pg wrote: post #36

Technological progress should cause increasing economic inequality, because the bottom end of the scale is firmly anchored at zero (someone taking a vacation), while technology gives the top end ever more powerful levers. So the interesting question is not why economic inequality is increasing, but why for a few decades in the mid twentieth century the trend was reversed. There are probably several factors at work he…

Technological progress should cause increasing economic inequality, because the bottom end of the scale is firmly anchored at zero (someone taking a vacation), while technology gives the top end ever more powerful levers.

What "scale" are we talking about, and why ever would it be "firmly anchored at zero?" It's perfectly possible to have a negative net worth, a negative cash flow, a negative effect on the wealth and well-being of the society in which you live, etc.

What technology does "the top end" have access to that others don't today? Cell phones? Web servers? Technology has always been influential in proportion to its cheapness. And it's all really cheap now.

If a vacation works and recharges your batteries, it's not, in the grand scheme, a zero-productivity interval, is it?

I think the key to the answer is the large corporation. The period of flattening coincides with the heyday of the large corporation.

Large corporations are still around and arguably more powerful than ever. Yet the difference in pay between the top executives and average workers in those corporations is one way the growing gap between the rich and the not-rich is illustrated and measured.

I remember the transition quite clearly. When I was a little kid, in the early 70s, the most impressive thing you could do was to work for a large corporation. It was the era of conglomerates in shiny office towers. By 1980 we were starting to see a glimpse of the world we now live in, where the ambitious people are all free agents.

I think this says a lot more about how children's view of the world around them evolves as they grow up than about actual changes in the American business landscape. America has been the land of entrepreneur-worship for a long time. John D. Rockefeller was working for himself from the start.

Re: Share of Income Gains by Quintile - Great Depression til Now

#293

Post by jberryman »

learc83 wrote: post #227
jberryman wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do you feel you need to frame the argument as such? While it might not be your view, the notion that the poor "deserve their lot" and even that their being poor is the Will of God (evangelical prosperity theology) is literally a mainstream conservative position. If this doesn't ring a bell then you haven't actually been paying attention.

Myself, I'm libertarian, but I grew up in a very conservative household, surrounded by conservatives at church, and I was a conservative until my early twenties. I have never met a conservative who believed that the poor "deserve their lot." And I can't think of one single conservative I know who wouldn't love to see the elimination of poverty. They just disagree with the liberal method. If this were really the case…

I should have clarified that when I said "mainstream conservative position" i meant that it's espoused by mainstream political figures (some current republican pres. Candidate for instance), rather than that it is the dominant conservative opinion.

Re: Share of Income Gains by Quintile - Great Depression til Now

#294

Post by cheez »

nl wrote: post #282
true_religion wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough, they "owned" it but it wasn't a liquid asset. That much was what I was trying to get across.

That's not true either. Both land and other stores of value (eg gold & silver) were frequently traded between medieval landowners. Even looking at Europe alone, the Kinghts Templers acted as bankers as early as 1000AD, which allowed the rich to transfer money over distance. By the 1300's the Medici's had created an institution that would be recognizable as a modern bank.

Interestingly, the Medicis also created the prototype for modern, "democratic" government. I found that incredibly fascinating and confusing.

Re: Share of Income Gains by Quintile - Great Depression til Now

#295

Post by runako »

daniel_solano wrote: post #4

The primary problem with this type of comparison is that it completely ignores economic mobility. Someone simply isn't born into a given income bracket and stays there for life. Most people's earning potential goes up over time. Speaking for myself, I think I've been in all five quintiles.

The relevant question isn't whether most people's earning potential goes up over time. That's pretty well baked into most jobs (older people manage younger people and get paid more than their charges, for example). So yes, you should make more at retirement than at 18.

The relevant question is around mobility between quintiles. Put another way: how likely is a person to retire in a higher quintile than the one in which he/she was born? The data pretty conclusively show that the US is calcifying in this regard. In other words, it's more difficult to move up to a higher bracket now than it was 30 years ago, etc. I don't have a citation handy, but I believe Elizabeth Warren has done some research into this area (as have others).

Re: Share of Income Gains by Quintile - Great Depression til Now

#296

Post by sesqu »

philiphodgen wrote: post #135

I'm sorry, but there seems to be an omitted first step in the entire comment thread of critiques -- from all comments coming from all political angles: examining the underlying data. The NYT graphic tells a terribly compelling story that supports a particular political point of view. That tickles my bullshit sensor, and tells me it is time to question the underlying data and assumptions. Frankly, this graphic makes m…

While the political story did raise a few flags, that's not what most makes me want to look at the data.

What really surprised me is that both main trends are linear. I presumed both productivity and wages would be exponential. I can believe that the wages are inflation-adjusted, though I saw no mention of this (except in the quintile section), but that productivity would have the same base is unexpected.

Re: Share of Income Gains by Quintile - Great Depression til Now

#297

Post by eru »

pg wrote: post #36

Technological progress should cause increasing economic inequality, because the bottom end of the scale is firmly anchored at zero (someone taking a vacation), while technology gives the top end ever more powerful levers. So the interesting question is not why economic inequality is increasing, but why for a few decades in the mid twentieth century the trend was reversed. There are probably several factors at work he…

> Technological progress should cause increasing economic inequality, because the bottom end of the scale is firmly anchored at zero (someone taking a vacation), while technology gives the top end ever more powerful levers.

We measure inequality of income not in absolute dollars but as ratios. So the anchoring at zero doesn't make a difference.

Re: Share of Income Gains by Quintile - Great Depression til Now

#298

Post by anamax »

william42 wrote: post #130
anamax wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or do you believe economic inequality is a negative externality (like pollution) that needs to be remedied? I'm pretty sure that you're not measuring inequality in a reasonable fashion. Larry Ellison has a lot more resources than I do, but the net worth ratio is far greater than the opportunities ratio. Yes, he could afford his own space program, but we both can afford to go diving. He can't drive his (much more ex…

The gap between what you can do and what Larry Ellison can do isn't as relevant as the gap between what you and Larry Ellison can do and what your average single mom living in welfare in Durham can do.

> The gap between what you can do and what Larry Ellison can do isn't as relevant as the gap between what you and Larry Ellison can do and what your average single mom living in welfare in Durham can do.

Yes, but the income inequality measures under discussion say the opposite, which is my point. (Do the arithmetic. $10k to $200k, which is way more than I make, is 20x. Larry is way more than 200x past me in wealth.)

Re: Share of Income Gains by Quintile - Great Depression til Now

#299

Post by rmc »

Steko wrote: post #166
pg wrote: post #36

Technological progress should cause increasing economic inequality, because the bottom end of the scale is firmly anchored at zero (someone taking a vacation), while technology gives the top end ever more powerful levers. So the interesting question is not why economic inequality is increasing, but why for a few decades in the mid twentieth century the trend was reversed. There are probably several factors at work he…

"I think the key to the answer is the large corporation. The period of flattening coincides with the heyday of the large corporation. Large corporations tend to decrease economic inequality. " I think this is off the mark. This time period corresponds directly to the rise of the financial industry which is mostly independent of firm size.

I thought the financial industry started in Amsterdam in the late 1600s? What happened between 1700 and 1950?

Re: Share of Income Gains by Quintile - Great Depression til Now

#300

Post by Andrew_Quentin »

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #73
pg wrote: post #36

Technological progress should cause increasing economic inequality, because the bottom end of the scale is firmly anchored at zero (someone taking a vacation), while technology gives the top end ever more powerful levers. So the interesting question is not why economic inequality is increasing, but why for a few decades in the mid twentieth century the trend was reversed. There are probably several factors at work he…

The more interesting question for me is: why are the dividends of increasing productivity no longer being shared with employees?

Because of the dismantling of the unions. I can not see any other factor being much more different than today, save for perhaps the deregulation of the banks where it seems a lot of wealth is concentrated, wealth which, I do think is a zero sum game as, whatever productivity might increase, it is taken away from some and given to some.

Someone mentioned the technological advances, but technology did not start in the 70s. We had the invention of energy before then, TV, radio, aeroplane, car, etc. So, I think that the period where the employees started sharing less of the gains seems to coincide with the dismantling of the unions, which, on a common sense approach also it makes sense as loosing your bargaining power you would expect would mean getting a worse deal.

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